Policy Forum: The Islamic State Five Years Later: Persistent Threats, U.S. Options

Five years after the Islamic State lost its "caliphate," an enduring defeat has yet to be achieved. In Iraq, the organization may be at its weakest point since its inception, but it has continued a low-level insurgency next door in Syria and is working to free thousands of members and sympathizers still detained in precariously situated camps. Further afield in its self-declared “provinces,” the group has seized new territories in Africa and established an external operations HQ in Afghanistan for planning terrorist attacks abroad.
What do these developments mean for the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State? To discuss current challenges, next steps, and potential threats to the homeland, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Ian McCary, the U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The event was moderated by Institute fellow Aaron Y. Zelin as part of the longstanding Counterterrorism Lecture Series.
Ian McCary joined the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau as Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition in September 2022. Previously, he served as charge d’affaires for the Afghanistan Affairs Unit in Qatar and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. His distinguished foreign service career also includes prominent posts in Pakistan, Tunisia, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, among others.